


Time on the couch

by Ceelek (KSullivan)



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-10
Updated: 2014-10-01
Packaged: 2018-01-24 05:20:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1593023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KSullivan/pseuds/Ceelek





	1. Chapter 1

Ali slept on the couch. Wrapped up in Ashlyn's favorite UNC blanket, curled into a ball, cheeks flush and stained with tears. It had been three weeks since she had shared a bed with Ashlyn. The light grey sheets that were once so warm and full of comfort were now cold and reminded the defender of what was no longer hers. So Ali slept on the couch, every night for three weeks. Ashlyn had only been back in their apartment for a few days. Ali had yet to leave for more than a few hours. Her teammates had been bringing her food and trying to keep her company, but the woman refused to eat more than a few bites of anything before insisting on sleep. Diana called every day, and Lori came by every night to check on her. Nothing had ever hurt her so much. The defenders entire world had collapsed in on top of her, and the only person that would have been able to save her was the reason she was so distraught.  
Ashlyn hated feeling so helpless. She couldn't tell Ali it would be alright, she couldn't help Lori or Diana or even Kyle pull her out of herself, hell, she couldn't even hold her in her arms anymore to comfort her. So she just watched her making sure that if she needed anything she would find a way to get it to her.  
Ashlyn stood between the couch and the coffee table watching Ali sleep. It was a fitful sleep full of sad moans and whimpers, but it was sleep, and god only knows how much she needed it. The blonde examined the other woman with her eyes, taking note of how well her cuts and bruises were healing. The bandage on her left hand was still wrapped around a sprained wrist, but no longer concealed the yellow and purple marks. The gash on Ali's forehead that had caused so much concern the night it appeared was now nothing more than a fading scratch with a little swelling around the outer edge. Soon it would be a faint scar and a painful story to tell. Ashlyn was happy to see how quickly the brunette was healing. However, those weren't Ali's only injuries and it showed. Ali's once tan skin had become pale and ashen from her lack of vitamin D, her lips, once pink and full, were dark and thin, and her body ached with every breath. The blonde slowly crouched in front of the brunette to touch her cheek and kiss the scar on her forehead. When Ashlyn's lips made contact with Ali's clammy skin it sent a shiver down the woman's spine. The blonde inhaled deeply and pulled the UNC blanket up past Ali's shoulders.  
"I love you Alibean." Ashlyn whispered in a voice so soft, that the mice wouldn't even hear. "Ashlyn" Ali whined.  
Hearing the pain in Ali's voice was enough to make Ashlyn cringe. As she got up she looked back at the sleeping form wrapped in her favorite blanket.

"I'm sorry I left you like this, I didn't mean to die."


	2. Chapter 2

Ali's laugh can be heard in every room of their apartment. She has been watching private home videos of the two for a few days now. Ali had already watched the footage from their last Christmas, Thanksgiving, and both of their birthdays. 

Right now she's in the middle of a video Ashlyn insisted on recording while on their first trip to Florida together. It's one of Ali's favorites. 

Ashlyn has the camera focused on Ali's face while she tries to stand up on a surf board for the first time. She holds out her left hand to Ali while she holds the camera in her right. She had bought the water proof case just for this trip. 

"Come on Al, you can do it." Ashlyn laughed at Ali while she struggled to find her balance on the board after she had fallen for the hundredth time.  
"Ashlyn, put the camera down and HELP me." Ali laughed at herself for being so clumsy but she really wanted to get this right.  
"Okay, okay" Ashlyn placed the camera on her surfboard and got in the water. It was only a few feet deep but Ali acted like they were in the middle of the Atlantic or something.   
"Now, you only have to stand up when a wave comes, so lay down and paddle out." Ashlyn helped guide Ali into the water a little ways until the first little wave came. "Okay, now...Stand up!" Ashlyn shouts her encouragement to Ali as she tries to get to her feet before the wave takes her under. "That's it! Look at you!" Ali managed to stand up for about ten seconds and that qualifies as "surfing" in her book.   
She sits back down on her board and looks back towards the blonde clapping in the shallows. The sun settled behind the tree line near the parking lot and created a halo of light just behind the keeper. Ali couldn't believe how beautiful she looked just then.   
"Come on Slater, if you paddle back in I'll take you to dinner before we go meet up with Chris."   
"Slater? Is that my new surfer name?!" Ali smiled. "Nah, I was thinking more like Shark-bait." Ashlyn grinned like an idiot when she looked back at the pouting defender.   
She picked up the discarded camera and put an arm around Ali's shoulder. "Hey, look up. Cheeese!" Ashlyn took a picture of the two of them.   
It was their first official vacation photo together.   
Ali's favorite part of the video has always been the few moments Ashlyn had been alone with the camera floating next to her while she watched Ali surf for the first time. Not because she got to see herself surfing, but because in those few moments she got to hear Ashlyn's voice and the woman talking to herself "God, I love this girl."   
That was the first time Ali got to hear Ashlyn say she loved her out loud. 

That picture is how the video ends. The laughter that vibrated through the apartment was gone. Ali sat on the couch wrapped up in the same UNC blanket she's been sleeping with for a month. It doesn't smell like Ashlyn anymore. She just sits in front of her laptop and stares at the screen until it goes into sleep mode. She slides her fingers over the mouse pad to wake the screen and Ashlyn's face lights up. Her chest feels hollow, her bones are cold, and everything aches. She looks around the apartment and tries to remember what it looked like the day they moved in.  
Ali hated it the first time they came to see it. The building was old, the walls had the ugliest exposed brick, and there were WAY too many windows for her liking. 

"It's old." Ali groaned as the two walked down the street towards their car. "It's got character." Ashlyn smiled. "But...the brick, did you see it?! It's orange." Ali said flatly. "It's only the kitchen, and we can hang stuff up. Kitchens are supposed to be ugly." Ashlyn laced their fingers together. "What about the windows? They let in so much light, It's like living in a glass box!" Ali wasn't having it.  
"It's like living on a cloud." Ashlyn smirked.   
"A cloud? Really? That's all you've got?" Ali looked at Ash like she was an idiot.  
"I've already got my angel, now we can have heaven too." Ali couldn't hide her blush, and Ashlyn knew she had won. 

"What an idiot." Ali sniffed trying to hold back tears.That's the line that got her to move into the ugly, old, light box. "Ugh" Ali ached for some kind of closure. 

"I'm not an idiot." Ashlyn scoffed. 

The blonde had been sitting on the arm of the couch the whole time while the other woman watched their videos. Ashlyn found more comfort in the videos than Ali ever could have.   
Ali looked up and toward the spot where Ashlyn perched. Ashlyn could feel Ali looking right through her, and it made her feel cold. "Ash?" Ali could have sworn she heard Ashlyn's voice, but at this point the only thing that kept the keepers voice fresh in her mind were the videos she had. "Al?" Ashlyn didn't know if Ali could hear her or not. 

"God damn it."   
Ali minimized the Florida video and found another.


	3. Chapter 3

It’s been three months since the accident.  
She’s moved back in to their room.  
Ali sleeps on her side of the bed with her back to the wall.  
She can’t stand to think of the empty space next to her.  
She sleeps in Ashlyn’s clothes.  
Sometimes she even wears them under her own when she leaves the apartment. 

Everyone knows.

No one says anything. 

Today is her birthday. Today is Ali's birthday. Today is..."Today is my birthday?"  
Kyle called and left a message for her while she was in the shower. Wrapped in a towel with another one of Ashlyn's UNC T-shirts laid out on the bed, she listens to the message her brother left. Kyle had screamed "HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALEX!" into the receiver while his friends sang Happy Birthday in the background. 

She replied with a quick text to her big brother telling him thank you and that she'd call him later. 

Ali couldn't believe that she had forgotten her own birthday. Who does that? 

* "Oooh Princess forgot her own birthday. It must be the peasants job to keep the date."*  
The thought of Ashlyn teasing her about her memory made Ali smile for a second.

\----

Her mom called her next, then her dad. They both opened with "Happy birthday Alex! How are you?"  
"Thanks, I'm good. How's everything there? No, I haven't made plans yet. Yeah. I know. Maybe I'll go out. I don't know. Yeah. I love you too." 

Ali answered all of their questions. Replied politely to their well wishes, and assured them that she was in fact okay. 

She told them that she was okay, and that she was making progress. 

What she didn't tell them, was that after she stopped sleeping on the couch, she had moved to the bathtub. That sometimes it was just too hard to get out. After crying with her face pressed to the tile, she only had enough strength to turn the water off, and lie down. After a week of sleeping in the bathtub she started having nightmares about the ocean, so she had to move to their bedroom. 

She didn't tell them that she had lost weight, or that she wasn't wearing make up anymore,that she didn't do her hair like she normally did, or that sometimes she forgets to feed herself. 

Ali didn't tell her father that when she goes out to get groceries that she no longer talks to anyone in the check out line. No, daddy's social little butterfly has been incased in a cocoon of grief that has yet to shed. 

Ali didn't tell her mother that she hasn't driven a car in three months, or that it took her four different tries to get into Lori's car and stay in the passengers seat long enough to actually make it to the store. 

She didn't tell them that "progress" meant that when she broke down on her first day back with the spirit, that she managed to make it to the locker room before collapsing to floor. Or that progress meant not throwing up every time she sees a jeep in the parking lot of the soccer plex. 

No, Ali wasn't going to tell her parents that their little girl was fully fractured and that none of the pieces seemed to fit into place without Ashlyn there to hold them all together. 

\-------

Ali had gotten dressed in Ashlyn's shirt and a pair of jeans that she had never seen before. By the time her new roommate knocked on the door Ali had slipped a button down of her own over Ashlyn's shirt. The shirt didn't really smell like Ashlyn anymore but it made her feel a little safer. She didn't want a new roommate, but it seemed to be kind of an unspoken agreement that Niki take care of Ali while she grieved, and in return Ali would do the same for Ashlyn's best friend.

\------

"Hey Al? It's almost ten o'clock, are you up yet?" Niki didn't want to barge in on Ali if she was still sleeping so she stayed on the other side of the door until she heard Ali give her the go ahead. 

The taller woman turned the knob and slowly opened the door just wide enough to stick her head in. "Hey, you're up." 

"Yeah, I got up a while ago. Thought I'd take a shower." 

Ali tries really hard for Niki.

When Ali cried so hard that she started having a panic attack at Ashlyn's service, Niki was there to pull her out and help her focus on the world around her, even though her own world was crashing down on top of her. 

"So. Today is your birthday." Niki says this as if she is unsure Ali is aware of the date.  
"Yeah."Ali replies flatly  
"Just making sure your old ass remembered." Niki jokes

They both know that Ashlyn was the fun one and that when she left, she took the light with her. 

"Fuck off." Ali laughs at Niki's joke and they both count it as a win.


	4. Chapter 4

Ali had her good days and her bad days. 

Ali's good days seemed to pick up after the NWSL season closed and the team fell into their individual post season lives. 

Ali's first National Team camp back was the first and second week of September. She got back into training with the team. She got to catch up with teammates she had missed during the last few months. And she got to get out of her bubble for a little bit. These were good days. At the end of the camp they played a friendly against Mexico. The U.S. won 5-0 after a solid 90 minutes.  
Ali rode the bench the whole game.  
After, they did normal teamy things like sign autographs and take pictures. All was going well until a fan asked Ali if she wasn't playing because she was still grieving. That flipped a switch in her and she excused herself to the locker room. She didn't sign anymore autographs that night, and when everyone flew home Ali didn't feel as positive about things as she had when camp started. 

The bad days came in waves after that.  
____________________________________________________  
On this particular day, she was drowning. 

Ali and Niki spent the day apart. Niki made plans with Molly, and Ali had a miracle feet event to help plan. When Ali got home Niki was still out. She was in the kitchen when she heard the first rumble of thunder. Ali walked over to the patio door and leaned against the doorway. The first web of lightning lit the sky and it made her think of Ashlyn. She thought of Ashlyn and what they'd be doing that second if she were still there. The sky opened up and began to pour every bit of rain it could muster to wash away the day. Ali stood with her forehead pressed to the glass trying to remember the rainy nights she had with Ashlyn.  
Before, she and Ashlyn would lie in bed together wrapped in each other’s arms and listen to the steady rhythm of the rain mix with their heart beats.

Ashlyn stood in the kitchen watching Ali relax.  
She took a few steps and reached for the other woman. Ali's eyes were closed, lost in her memories.  
The second Ashlyn's hand made contact with Ali's face, the thunder boomed and the sound tore her away from her thoughts.  
Ashlyn smiled at the look of surprise on Ali's face.  
She had scrunched her eye brows like she was remembering something else and then a look of horror took over. The blond knew the second Ali's face changed.  
Ali raced to the counter and flipped through the calender laying next to the sink. She then pulled her phone out and frantically navigated to her reminders for that day. *Breakfast with Jill, Miracle feet meeting, Search for Banquet hall locations* and at the very bottom of the list typed in blue *Ash's birthday*. 

She wanted to throw up. It was like someone had punched her in the stomach and knocked the wind out of her lungs.  
She understood forgetting her own birthday, it's nothing special, but to forget the love of your life's birthday, that's ridiculous.  
Ashlyn would have been heartbroken.  
Ali leaned against the counter staring at her phone in disbelief. She looked back up towards the patio where Ashlyn stood. It's not like she could see her but it felt like she was looking right at her.  
"I'm so sorry Ashlyn." The lump in her throat made it hard for her to say anything before she sank to the kitchen floor sobbing.  
_____________________

Niki came home about an hour after that. The rain had only gotten stronger, and the thunder louder.  
The crashing in the kitchen however, was not the storm. Walking around the corner with caution, Niki poked her head in to find Ali standing in front of a bunch of broken dishes. She had paused for a second to glance at the mug in her hand, she huffed and chucked it at the wall.  
"Woah there tiger, planning a trip to Ikea are we?".

Ali barely glanced at her before grabbing another item from the cabinet and throwing it to the floor.  
"Oookay...Well. If we're smashing stuff then let me go grab the ashtray Molly made me on our last date night, that thing is hideous." 

Ali didn't look pleased with Niki's joke. She held onto the counter with one hand and a mug in the other.  
"Don't fucking laugh at me." Ali's words tasted like poison to her. She knew it wasn't Niki's fault she'd forgotten Ashlyn's birthday.  
"What's your problem,Ali?" Obviously irritated she took a step into the kitchen.  
"Nothing." Ali smashed the mug against the counter. "Nothing at all" She tossed the handle in onto the growing pile on the floor.

Niki took a few more steps towards the defender. "Well now you're getting into my stuff and I don't feel much like taking a trip to Ikea." Niki reached for the plate in Ali's hand. Ali turned away with the plate pressed to her chest. "This is mine, and I'll break it if I damn well please."  
"No, that's mine. Give it to me." Niki reached over Ali's shoulder for the plate and Ali folded into herself even more.  
"Ali,give it to me! Ashlyn made that for me!" with that Ali stiffened.  
She looked down at her hands and finally took notice of the design. 

It was a plane white plate with "Bro night" sloppily painted across the top and a little picture of stick figure women holding hands in the middle.  
Niki ripped it from Ali's hands and put it back in the cabinet. "I get you wanting to destroy everything you own but don't tear my life down too." 

Her words hurt. Ali wasn't trying to tear Niki down. She didn't want to destroy anything, but here she was, surrounded by at least a dozen plates and mugs broken in in a least a dozen different ways.  
Niki had expected something like this. 

_______________________________

Kyle had warned her before she moved in.

"You're gonna have to watch your step." Kyle sounded like he was about to lecture Niki on her grieving roommate etiquette.  
"I know." She took her seat across from Kyle. They picked a table on the patio of Niki's favorite coffee shop.  
"Never mind what’s happening now." Kyle tilted his head to catch Niki's gaze.  
"You’re gonna see things you’re not gonna wanna see."  
"I know." Niki hurt too so she understood Kyle's warning.  
She glanced down at his hands that were wrapped a little too tightly around his cup of coffee and she wondered how long he'd been awake. 

Everyone was concerned with taking care of Ali. That included Kyle. He now mirrored Ali in appearance. Pale and ashen, a little thinner. He was grieving for both of his little sisters. 

"There's gonna come a point when we lose her all together." He sounded like he might choke. "It’s our job to bring her back."  
"It's..." Kyle breaks eye contact with Niki to look away and gather his thoughts.

"That’s what Ashlyn would want." She finished his statement for him.  
Niki knew exactly what Ashlyn would want, and Kyle was right.  
She would want Niki to take care of Ali for her, and she'd want Ali to do the same for Niki.  
"I got it." 

Niki moved in the next day.  
_____________________________________________

Niki's brought back to the situation at hand when she hears Ali speak.

"I’m holding on to a figment of my imagination here." Ali's voice is barely a squeak.  
"What?" Niki's thrown by the way Ali's worded things.  
"It's Ashlyn's birthday. And I forgot." Niki swears that Ali was talking to herself.  
"I thought you knew." Niki feels horrible. She thought Ali planned all of the things she was doing that day to avoid Ashlyn's birthday.  
Ali's crying again.

"You forgot, it's okay to forget things sometimes." Niki's on the floor with Ali now.  
"I hear her sometimes." Ali sits with her back against the cabinet and her feet spread in front of a pile of broken plates.  
"Why can't I get her out of my head?" She searches Niki's face for an answer. 

"You've lost a part of your existence. Mine too." It's a statement. Niki puts it out there like it's nothing, and everything. They've lost part of themselves. 

She breaks under her own feelings. Ali doesn't see Niki cry much. Just once since the funeral, and that was enough. 

Niki's sobbing at this point and she's not sure, but she thinks she's dying.  
The pain starts in her jaw and flows through the rest of her body like electricity. She gasps for breath and looks to Ali for reassurance. "Is this what dying feels like?" 

"If it is, then I've died a million times this year." Ali's found her voice.  
"Stay grounded. Focus on me and breathe." Ali's reciting Niki's own words to her from Ashlyn's service. 

It takes a couple of minutes but Niki gets her wits and the two fall into a comfortable silence.  
Leaning on each other the two stare out at the mess in front of them. The dishes, and their feelings. 

Niki breaks the silence. "I hear her too, ya know."

__________________________  
Ashlyn's been watching all of this from the patio door.  
"They... hear me?"


End file.
